Ized- the Ancestors Read online

  The Ancestors

  Ized

  Inhaltsverzeichnis

  The Ancestors

  Prologue - The black

  One - The new Administrator

  Two - Beautiful stranger

  Three - Approaching

  Four - The Nights of Fire

  Five - Agony of soul

  Six - Adar in the land of Emeishan

  Seven - Reunited

  Imprint

  The magician, who follows the path of the priest, needs to make his peace with the sleeping beast inside him.

  In order to awaken the priest, two souls had to unite.

  Prologue - The black

  Once again, the Naga attacked defenseless settlements. For several days the Black and the Brown had been fighting against them and the Red. No one gets a chance to rest. Never before the creatures of the Red had been that persistent. Many villages along the border no longer existed, countless farmers had died. Whenever the creatures visited a place, the desolation of the land spread. In the meantime, the neighboring country could only be reached by riding over a barren and rocky plain for hours. An underground on which neither plants nor animals existed anymore.

  So far, it never had been a problem to defeat Nagas. They killed everything that got in their way, but they were also easy to destroy. Only soulless shells of mysterious origin.

  But this time it was different. The number of Nagas just didn’t seem to decrease. The Black was exhausted and with him, the priest. All reserves of energy fainted. Now they fought over a village that was empty because the survivors had fled. Both humans and animals were on their way to the mountains. The Brown protected them. The Black, however, continued to fight the Naga to keep them from persecuting the defenseless. So long, until the Brown returned again. Only then they would retreat into the protection of Taishan Fortress. Just a little longer, and he could think of his own safety. He had to recover and gather new strength for the next fight.

  He had just discovered the Brown of the priestess Maioshan in the distance. He would help him fight the Nagas. Together they could destroy the last creatures.

  Suddenly the Red stood in front of him. At the same time, the Nagas turned against the Brown, as if they had received a silent order.

  »Are you ready to die, Black?« The Red knew exactly about his opponent’s weakness. The last days had been exhausting. While the Red withdrawing, again and again, let his Nagas fight for him, the Black was not able to do that.

  »Maybe you are ready to die today. Then the land would finally be free. You have killed all the priests, one by one.«

  »I will also destroy the Black priest and the Brown priestess. Dagon is only the next on the long list, the second last. Only the priests are to blame for the fact that Chiyou can no longer love my priestess«, the Red said. »But one day, when you’re gone, King Chiyou will love Mamien again. Then the priestess will be able to lead the life she hoped for. A being the priests betrayed her for. A life at the king’s side.«

  The Black truncated. What was the Red waiting for, and why didn’t he attack him? But now he felt lead tiredness creeping upon him. The break he was granted was fatal for him and made him feel all his exhaustion.

  Nevertheless, something was different today. The Red never spoke about his priestess. Was there still hope? Perhaps he could convince the Red. Maybe even bring him to his senses. The Red and his priestess were connected and affected each other. At least he had to try.

  »That is more than incredible. Why should he ever love her again? He is a human being! How can he understand the existence of a priest? As soon as his life clock has expired, he will die. But the priestess is connected to you forever. That is the truth. Mamien represents precisely the thing you both fight so mercilessly.« But the moment he said it, the Black became aware of something incomprehensible.

  The king’s life clock!

  He hesitated irritatedly. Time didn’t matter for a priest, because he became infinitely old. A priest was not immortal; no, he wasn’t. But his life clock struck eternally if it was not destroyed by external influences.

  But the king was a human being. However, he had lived far too long for this short-lived species. He should have been dead for generations. How was that possible?

  The king’s life clock no longer ran like a human’s!

  Chiyou didn’t age anymore!

  He had not changed for too long.

  But … that was impossible!

  He was only a human being!

  At that moment, pain flashed through him. He groaned and retreated.

  The Red laughed mockingly. Without any warning, he had struck and injured him with his sharp claws.

  The pain brought the Black back to reality. Dark blood came out of the wounds. This should never have happened to him, the warrior. He had been unfocused. But the constant fighting had also tired his attention.

  »Do you finally understand? Chiyou will never die, and that’s why you can’t kill the priestess and me either. Neither today nor any other time. Because as long as he lives, we will also live. But how should you understand that? How could you know the power of love? Love is the magic of the purest kind. It survives everything.«

  »As long as he lives? So the magic of the priestess keeps him alive?« The Black froze in bafflement. The magic of the priestess was enormous.

  »Of course. Him, her and with it also myself. Our lives, as well as our deaths, are connected. Thus we have all become immortal. The fact that he no longer loves Mamien is solely due to the existence of the priests. He only stopped loving her when she walked the way of the priestess, and I awoke. So he needs time to get used to it. But one day he will love her again. When you all are destroyed, and she is the only priestess. When he no longer has to be afraid of you. No one will be able to kill me as long as he lives, and he will live forever because Mamien loves him. Her magic is unique.«

  Mamien was clearly insane. Why should the priests be blamed that the king had turned away from her?

  But one thing was sure now. Someone had to kill the king. It was the only way to destroy the Red. That was the secret of how the horror could finally be ended. Chiyou was not invulnerable or immortal, nor was a priest. Now it was also clear to the Black why the Red was able to survive deadly wounds. He recovered because the king was alive. So it was only magic that kept them both alive. Wounds could be inflicted on the Red. Heavy wounds. Often the healing process took months, sometimes years, but the Red survived. Everyone else would die from such injuries. Not so the Red. He disappeared, and with him, the priestess, the king, and the Nagas. They were simply no longer there and came back when the Red was well again. All because of Mamien.

  The magic of the priestess had become incredibly powerful. She had succeeded in interweaving destinies. The human life clock was limited, but the kings were now as infinite as the priests. The mortal could not die as intended. Then why did the Red tell all of this? He had to expect that he, Dagon, now knew what to do!

  »The king had more than enough time. He will never love the priestess again. He loved her when she was a magician, and that was quite unusual. Magicians and humans always stay among themselves. The two had a special relationship. But Mamien changed the moment she walked the way of the priestess. When your soul awoke, she turned. She is with you and you with her. But he is a human and will always remain one. Even if he lives forever, he cannot understand or also accept our existence.«

  The Red roared with hatred, attacked again with rage, not hitting, but being wounded himself. Several times in a row, the Black tore large wounds into the muscular body of his opponent. The Red bled strongly, and his movements slowed down. With the severity of the injuries, the pain had to be terrible. The Black perceived it with satis
faction.

  Dagon, the Black’s priest, had attended the coronation ceremony. As the husband of Maioshan, Mamien’s sister, he had to be present. The king and Mamien were a beautiful couple. They loved each other. Everyone believed at that time that the two would marry each other.

  A human and a magician!

  Then things changed.

  The priests of the land were powerful. Much more than the magicians or humans. But the human king had strong ambitions. He wanted to have his own priestess. After his coronation, Chiyou asked his mistress to go the way of the priestess to prove her love to him. He wanted to rule with her. Out of love, she agreed. But not long after the ceremony, the king’s behavior changed. He withdrew from Mamien because she became scary to him. The Black could understand the fear, because the magician changed considerably when he walked the priest’s path.

  But now the Black finally knew how to end the madness that had come over the land. He had to tell Maioshan as soon as possible!

  Leaden tiredness, however, threatened to defeat him. He felt weak, terribly weak. Again the Red struck him. The Black barely had the strength to defend himself.

  »Do you feel the juice of eternal sleep slowly overcomes you?« the Red now asked way too gently.

  The horrible realization went through the Black. That’s why he lacked strength! And that was also the reason why the Red had talked to him! His claws were wetted with a toxic substance that needed time.

  When the poison struck his wounds, this substance had penetrated his body. The poison had made him insidiously tired and defenseless. The Black retreated desperately and struck several times again. With claws and teeth, he jumped blindly at his opponent and hurt him enormously. But the enemy also attacked him and inflicted terrible wounds on him.

  The Black barely felt the pain. The poison befogged him, so he turned his head, took one last look at the Brown. It was still too far away, and the Nagas kept him there. The Black knew he could no longer come to his help. He knew that his end was near, but he still wanted to do one last service of love. He would protect the Brown today. With his recent strength, The Black threw himself on the Red and wounded him severely again. Then he bit him one last time, caught his neck, and tore a large wound. The enemy’s blood splashed over him while his strength left him. Fog rose before his eyes. He felt no more pain. His legs collapsed, and he fell to the ground. His senses faded. The enormous body twitched one last time. So the Black died under the angry bites of the Red.

  But that wasn’t all. The Red burned the Black with huge bursts of fire until his body crumbled to ashes. Only the Black’s golden eyes, which became huge, deep black jewels at the moment of death, survived the flames. They lay visibly in the ashes. The moment the Red disappeared, the priestess appeared. Overflowing with blood, she grabbed a stone and staggered over to the jewels. She shattered them until they were no longer visible in the ashes. Then the priestess of the Red disappeared and with her the Nagas.

  The Brown saw what happened to the Black, but could do nothing. The attacks of the Nagas kept him from helping him. Only when everyone was gone, the Brown landed in the ashes, and the priestess appears. She fell to her knees. »Dagon, my darling Dagon. What has the Red done?« Then she collapsed on the rock and lost consciousness.

  Maioshan fell into a restless sleep. She dreamed of her husband. Dagon stood before her. She felt his hand touch her cheek.

  »My love,« she heard his full-sounding voice, without the priest’s lips moving. »My wonderful wife. I must tell you something, it is essential … but no, we souls do not carry much of what happened in life with us. Too fast, it is forgotten at this place. Therefore look for splinters of my eyes. The fragments are a part of me and carry the knowledge in themselves how to defeat the Red. Let the pieces grind and be set in rings; in golden rings. One day the Ringbearer will appear. With the help of the rings, he will be able to free the land. The jewels will awaken, and the priest’s gold will pass through them. The ring will become a part of him. The Red … he shall never get his hands on them. Protect the remains of me until the person unites with the dragon, and the Ringbearer appears.«

  The figure in front of her faded. Dagon stroked her cheek again with a gentle gesture. She could feel a loving touch. »My love for you would be eternal, even beyond death.« With it, he bent over her to kiss her gently. While her lips were still touching, Dagon faded to a white fog and finally disappeared.

  Maioshan awoke and felt dizzy. Slowly the memories overcame, and the pain of loss overwhelmed her. Tears ran down her face.

  The sun was low, but there was still enough daylight to look for splinters. She laboriously gathered herself up, searching the rocky ground. First, she discovered ash. Carefully she wiped the rocks with her hands. Beneath it, several cracks appeared in the foundation, and in one of them, two fragments were stuck, both a little bigger than the nail of a thumb. She scraped out the pieces and put them in a small bag on her belt.

  Then she sat in the Black’s ashes for hours and cried. She didn’t move into the night, was numbed from grief.

  The Red had taken away her love. Now she was alone, terribly alone, with the task of protecting the people and the land. She was a healer, not born to fight, like Dagon, the warrior. If the Brown was also killed, Emeishan was really lost. Only with the help of the Brown, it was possible to stop the Red from his destructive fury.

  In the middle of the night, she returned to Taishan.

  Taishan, the fortress of priests.

  Taishan, the only safe place as long as the Brown and his priestess lived.

  She had to fight on! Fighting for the magicians and the people of the land.

  Back in the fortress, she let the splinters drag. A goldsmith made two golden rings and set the jewels into them. One for a man, the other for a woman. Since that day, Maioshan wore the rings on a golden chain around her neck. She waited for the words of her beloved husband to come true.

  The hope of everyone now rested on her shoulders because the magicians avoided the way of the priest. They were afraid to follow this path. The Red had killed too many priests since he had existed.

  Then the Red slowly began to hunt and kill the magicians as well. As a result, many of them sought their salvation in the distance and fled.

  A few years later, there was a violent earthquake. The Brown rushed across the land to see what had happened and to help the people.

  Many buildings had collapsed, but fortunately, barely humans had been harmed. Nevertheless, the Brown felt that it could mean nothing good. When he came near the border, he realized what had happened.

  All of Emeishan had been lifted almost three hundred feet by an inconceivable force. The border fell vertically into the depth. The rock was as smooth as glass. There were no projections that would allow a descent. Nobody could cross this border anymore. Everyone who would try it was forced to fall.

  This was clearly magic and could only be the doing of the priestess Mamien.

  Now there was no way to leave or enter the land. None?

  Almost none!

  At a single point, a path in serpentines led slowly deeper through the rock. Via this, one could reach the neighboring country. But the way was dangerous. Because who went through the gorge was totally exposed to an attack from above. The canyon itself offered no protection.

  The magicians learned of this way, and others fled the land. Some of them even survived the escape and moved to other countries. First to the area of Ized. Later, however, also further, to settle in other places. Thus magic survived far from its origin. Those who crossed the border were safe from the Red were not persecuted anymore. The society of magicians in Emeishan, however, decreased due to the waves of flight.

  Maioshan suffered from the development. It became more and more hopeless to find the Ringbearer. The fewer magicians lived in the land, the less possible it was that the prophecy could be fulfilled. Because only a magician could become a priest, and only in this way it was possible to unite the humans wit
h the dragon.

  Will the prophecy ever be fulfilled?

  One - The new Administrator

  The longest night of the year was celebrated all over Ized. Especially in the capital, Farsie women, men, lords, and young magicians met in one of the guesthouses to dance. The innkeepers granted enough space. The tables were moved closer to the walls to create a much-used dance floor. Some people preferred traditional beer, and others preferred to drink wine. Everyone celebrated, and the atmosphere was relaxed. Lord Adar and Lord Befen celebrated this festival in one of the taverns.

  Lord Befen, the high lord of warriors, rarely went among other people. He mostly preferred the festivities in the quarter of the magicians. But during the longest night of the year, he also enjoyed the dance in the taverns. His eyes sparkled still youthfully, although his age was recognizable by the grayish temples. He was the oldest magician in the room today. But he loved the youngsters, and the youngsters loved and respected the reasonable warrior. Lord Befen has short hair, as it was usual for a warrior. In the corners of his eyes, small lines of laughter had deepened over the years. His eyebrows looked almost bushy, and his nose was a little crooked. Like the young Lord Adar, he was tall and well-trained. Lord Befen’s friend, Lord Adar, was a young warrior. Women looked at him. He moved with the sleek and silent elegance of a wild cat. His noble face with the fine eyebrows, the brown eyes, the narrow nose, and the curved lips made the hearts of the women in Farsie beat faster. His hairstyle was untraditional. His dark hair was longer than usual. The warm-colored skin and the smoky voice match the image of the young magician. With a charming smile and fire in his eyes, he could make any female feel burning. But this warrior was still far too young to bind himself to a mate. He also didn’t use every opportunity to warm a woman’s - like many others on his stand.